Forget this Tapestry
by starfishstar
Summary: Two cousins pay a visit, and talk about things both old and new. (Part 4 of La Ronde Noire)


**Notes:**

This is part 4 of La Ronde Noire, a series that follows characters and themes from the Black family, with each story following one character from the previous scene into the next scene, until it eventually comes around full circle. So far:

Part 1: "The Landlord's Other Daughter" (Narcissa and Andromeda)  
Part 2: "Tea, No Sympathy" (Narcissa and Regulus)  
Part 3: "Two Brothers Down a Dark Alley Sometime in 1979" (Regulus and Sirius)

The final part is:

Part 5: "Two Sisters Take Tea" (Andromeda and Narcissa)

Thanks to stereolightning for helpful feedback once again!

– – – – –

"It's really very strange being back here, after all this time," Andromeda says.

They're standing in front of the Black Family Tree in the drawing room, because, hell, what other pastimes does Sirius have to offer her here in this musty old house, when none of the others from the Order are around?

"Someone should put this in a museum," Andromeda continues. She's peering closely, quite clinically, at the spot on the tapestry where her own name was blasted off nearly a quarter of a century ago. There are a few strands of silver in her dark hair these days, Sirius notices, and she looks even more self-assured, in her simple but elegant robes, than how he remembers her as a young woman. Andromeda nods, an appraiser sure in her assessment of some work that falls within her area of expertise, and says, "It's such an exquisite portrait of mania."

And Sirius actually laughs, because only Andromeda could say something like that and make it sound entirely reasonable.

It was Dora, bless her little hot-pink head, who fixed it so Andromeda could visit him here, running all over England and Scotland to get the necessary permission, the precious slip of paper with the address written in Dumbledore's own hand, and so on and so on.

Sirius suspects Dora orchestrated all this because she worries Sirius will go quietly mad if he's left cooped up alone at 12 Grimmauld Place too often.

Well, so what? Maybe she's not wrong.

Thoughtfully, Andromeda traces a finger along the golden threads that connect them all, both the embroidered faces and the burnt-out holes. "Hmm," she murmurs to herself.

Sirius has always admired the cool neutrality with which Andromeda seems able to face her past and her disownment from the family. Even all these years later, if he lets himself truly think about it, Sirius has to admit he is still angry. Some part of him is still a sixteen-year-old boy, hurt and lashing out.

It doesn't help, either, that he seems to spend half his time these days trying to get his mother's portrait to shut up. All the very worst of her, preserved for the ages in oil paints. Andromeda, at least, hasn't ended up trapped back in the childhood home she escaped all those years ago.

Sirius pushes that uncharitable thought away. This is not a contest to see who's managed to end up the _most_ fucked up thanks to having been born a Black. Psychopathic Bellatrix surely wins that prize anyway. The rest of them have their moments, at least, of behaving like human beings. Bella never has. Sirius cringes to think how he used to admire her, when he was very small and she so very dramatic.

He doesn't know exactly what changed when – the seeds must have been there even before he met James – but Sirius is profoundly grateful that at some point along the line in his childhood, he apparently decided he didn't want to be like Bellatrix after all.

"I've been thinking about Reg a lot lately," he says abruptly. He doesn't usually talk about Regulus, but he knows Andromeda will understand. Regulus was a lot of things, a fool, a bigot. But he was Sirius' brother, too. Sirius laughs, harshly, trying to lighten the mood and failing. "Well. How could I not, right, being back here?"

Andromeda turns away from the tapestry and towards Sirius, grants him the full weight of her considerable attention and intellect.

"Was it my fault?" Sirius asks her. He really wants to know. "Was it because I left, because I wasn't there to keep him from going off the deep end?"

"You can't think that way," she says.

"Awfully hard not to," he tells her. "I had twelve years in Azkaban to think about how I wasn't guilty of the crime I'd been arrested for, and yet fundamentally I _was_ guilty. Why should it be any different with Reg? I was his big brother. I was the one who left."

Andromeda crosses her arms and fairly glares at him. That glare, at least, is one thing that hasn't changed with the years in the slightest. "You think that's how it works? You think you're responsible for everyone else's life? Next you're going to tell me I should have stayed at home and married Lucius Malfoy like the good daughter I should have been. But I would have been _miserable_ with Malfoy, Sirius. Can you imagine it? While Narcissa, apparently, is quite happy."

Sirius tries to imagine Andromeda, with all her steely wit and determination, married to that bastard Malfoy, and utterly fails. The two of them stare at each other, and then they're laughing, really _laughing_, like Sirius hasn't done in years. Andromeda is wiping her eyes, blindly stretching out one hand to support herself against the tapestry neither of them cares about anyway.

"Oh, Merlin, Sirius," she's saying. "Can you imagine? Lucius Malfoy? Suffocate me first with Pixie dust. Quite honestly."

Sirius tries to get a handle on his lungs and diaphragm, which are having a riotous party here very much without his permission.

"Well, so what do you think?" he asks, when he can breathe again. "If Narcissa turned up here today, wanting to be all buddy-buddy again – what would you say to her?"

Andromeda's face cycles through all the possible responses: mirth, derision, sadness, righteous anger, regret. She takes a deep breath.

"I would _hope _I might tell her I'm glad she's found her own peace," she says. "However, I imagine in practice there might be a fair bit of shouting before we got to that point."

"I suppose, if I had the chance now, I'd tell Reg –"

But there Sirius stops again. He'd like to think he'd find the charity in himself to forgive Regulus for his naïveté and his terrible mistakes. But in truth, if Regulus were here, if Regulus were alive, they'd probably row just as horribly as they had done as kids. Sirius doesn't have Andromeda's capacity to forgive.

Andromeda surveys him, then says, "Come on, let's get you out of this house. You're allowed to go into the back garden, at least, aren't you?"

The back garden. Of course he is. It falls within the unplottable protections of the house. Sirius has got so trapped in his own mind here, he wouldn't even have thought of it.

Andromeda leads the way to the back of the house – even after all these years, she remembers her way around perfectly – and they settle down on the back steps, looking out over a small and sadly neglected garden. The weather is just barely turning to autumn, and the sun is still warm. Andromeda has always been the wisest of all of them, no question.

Sirius sneaks a look over at her. Her eyes are closed, face turned up to the sun and smiling.

"Thanks, you know, for coming to this old place just to visit me," he says.

"But of course," she says, face still upturned. Smiling up at the sunlight like that she looks almost like a child again, her expression pleased, nearly giddy. "Let us never forget the value of a visit."

"I mean it."

Andromeda opens her eyes and brings her attention back to him. "So do I." She reaches across the step and squeezes his hand, once. "Things will be all right, Sirius. In one strange way or another."

"I'm going to hold you to that."

She smiles, a little sadly this time. "There I think you might be confusing me with an Oracle."

They lapse into silence, and it's nice. Companionable. Sirius has forgotten what it's like to be silent, but not alone.

Andromeda gives him another smile, then turns again to gaze out over the garden. So Sirius, too, sits there next to his favourite cousin and watches as light and shadow chase each other in slow motion across the overgrown roses and weeds.

– – – – –

Note: The fifth and final part of this series is a story I'd previously posted, called "Two Sisters Take Tea."


End file.
